1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a camera and, more particularly, to a camera that has a stowage (or storage) chamber, into which a film cartridge can be loaded, and a cover (or lid) of the stowage chamber.
2. Description of Related Art
Some cameras are of the type in which a film cartridge is loaded into a cartridge chamber in the axial direction of the film cartridge. Further, most of the cameras of such a type have mechanisms for facilitating the taking-out of the film cartridge from the cartridge chamber by pushing the film cartridge out of the cartridge chamber by the force of a spring or the like when a cover of the cartridge chamber (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the cartridge chamber cover) is opened.
However, in a case where such a mechanism for pushing the film cartridge out of the cartridge chamber is provided in a camera, there is a fear that the film cartridge is popped (or sprung) out of the cartridge chamber just when the cover of the cartridge chamber is opened. Further, even in the case of a camera which is not provided with the pushing-out mechanism, if an opening (or aperture) of the cartridge chamber opens downwardly, there is a fear that the film cartridge falls therefrom just when the cover is opened, and as a result, the film cartridge is damaged. Thus, there has been proposed a pop-out preventing mechanism for preventing a film cartridge from popping out of or falling from a cartridge chamber by engaging and stopping the cover, which is partly (or half) opened, with a clicking means and subsequently, bringing the film cartridge into an abutting engagement with the cover, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Hei 7-199339.
However, the pop-out preventing mechanism proposed in the aforementioned patent application employs a plate (or leaf) spring as the clicking means. Thus, there is the necessity of using a plate spring which is actually large to some extent, so as to cause a spring pressure (or force) required to prevent the film cartridge from popping out of or falling from the cartridge chamber.
Therefore, a space which is specifically provided for mounting the plate spring and parts needed to fix the plate spring to the camera are required. However, there is caused a problem that such a space and parts are obstacles to the miniaturization (or the reduction in size (and weight)) of a camera. Moreover, most of plate springs have insufficient durability.
In addition, in the case of the aforementioned pop-out preventing mechanism, the cover is brought into a partly opened state at a stroke. Thus, there is a fear that a user who is unfamiliar with such a camera may worry that the film cartridge might pop out of or fall from the camera.